AMERICAN IN MOSCOW IS CONVICTED IN SCHEME TO SMUGGLE OLD VIOLINS

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A Fordham University graduate has been convicted in Moscow City Court of being part of a ring that netted more than $225,000 by smuggling 18th-century violins out of the country and selling them at auction in the United States, according to Soviet press reports today.

The American, Peter D'Oria, who married a Soviet citizen and now lives here, was convicted Friday and sentenced to a three-year prison term, the reports said. The reports added that he made $8,000 for his work in the smuggling network, which reached from New York to Israel to Moscow.

The internationally known Soviet violinist Sergei Dyachenko was convicted in the same proceeding and sentenced to a seven-year term, according to the reports. The three-year-old operation to smuggle out and auction off instruments made by 18th-century craftsmen ended, the reports said, when Mr. D'Oria was caught smuggling a falsely labeled violin at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow last February.

According to an article in the newspaper Sovetskaya Kultura, Mr. D'Oria and Mr. Dyachenko, both aficionados of musical instruments, befriended each other after Mr. D'Oria settled here. Collecting Documentation

While Mr. Dyachenko traveled around the Soviet Union, from Leningrad to the Black Sea resort of Sukhumi, bargaining for old instruments, Mr. D'Oria twice came to the Soviet Union from the United States to provide the false documentation that could be used to smuggle out the valuable violins, according to the newspaper report.

Any traveler arriving in the Soviet Union must fill out a customs declaration listing not only the money in his possession but also all other valuables ranging from jewelry to precious metals to antiques.

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On departure, a foreign resident must present this form to verify that the valuables being taken out of the country are the ones with which he arrived.

Part of Mr. D'Oria's role in the smuggling, according to the newspaper, was bringing into the country inexpensive violins, then taking out valuable ones as he presented his customs declaration as documentation.

According to the newspaper article, Mr. D'Oria succeeded in taking out one violin, but was caught at customs with another old master in February. A Soviet expert who had been called in by a customs official discovered the violin was carrying a false imprint. Said It Was a Favor

At the time, he said he was carrying the instrument out as a favor to Mr. Dyachenko, who felt that the Soviet Union did not have the wherewithal or the knowledge to keep valuable instruments - made by such craftsmen as the celebrated 18th-century Italian violin-maker Sanctus Seraphin, for example - from deteriorating with age. Mr. D'Oria said his partner wanted the instruments sent to the West, where they could receive proper care, the article said.

The article said the instruments were sold at auction in the United States. The money was passed to an American, who passed it through intermediaries to an Israeli, with all the intermediaries taking a cut.

A version of this article appears in print on August 3, 1986, on Page 1001010 of the National edition with the headline: AMERICAN IN MOSCOW IS CONVICTED IN SCHEME TO SMUGGLE OLD VIOLINS. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe